Stuck in the shaking business of FTX and the crypto world, Solana continues to develop his projects internally. Despite the fact that the SOL token lost more than half of its value in just a few days, the teams continue to work hard. Especially on the launch of Saga phone. And now we know a little more about the specialties and partnerships made by Solana Labs!
Solana partners with Helium and T-Mobile!
On the occasion of the Solana Breakpoint Conference, Solana Labs has gone public with its partnership with Helium. A partnership that comes as part of the launch of the Saga mobile on which the blockchain has been working for months. The collaboration between Solana Labs and Helium is intended to bring several benefits to users. In fact, they will be able to benefit from a free trial of Helium Mobile for a period of 30 days. After this trial period, the Helium Mobile plan will be billed at a reasonable price: from 5 dollars per month.
Boris Renski, director of Nova Labs which manages Helium welcomed this partnership with Solana blockchain:
This partnership will not only increase the use of the Helium network, but Saga customers who sign up with Helium Mobile will benefit from a seamless and integrated user experience and will be able to earn cryptocurrency rewards for using their cellular service.
Through this partnership, Solana Labs hopes to have Helium network coverage. And especially its 5G coverage and its fleet of more than 6,500 network antennas. To cover the green areas, Solana Labs has concluded a 5-year partnership with the operator T-Mobile. This provides that the operator covers areas where 5G Helium hotspots are insufficient.
Good to know: The Helium Network is a community and open source network, developed by Nova Labs. The principle of this network is to make connected things communicate with each other. Helium’s business model plans to reward crypto users who make their 5G nodes available.
Saga: Live the web3 experience on mobile!
Last June, Solana revealed his ambitions to launch a phone. It is clear that Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of the blockchain welcomed an initiative then considered that Saga could “setting a new standard for the web3 mobile experience“.
In detail, the device will be manufactured by the OSOM company which has some experience. The smartphone should be marketed at a price close to 1,000 dollars. In terms of technical specifications, the device should be equipped with a 6.67-inch OLED screen, a storage capacity of 512 GB and a RAM memory of 12 GB. The device will carry a chip of the first generation Snapdragon 8+ as well as two 50 – cameras megapixel in addition to the 16-megapixel front camera. Everything will be backed up by a 4,100 mAh wireless rechargeable battery.
A credible competitor to Apple and Samsung?
If we stick to the technical specifications, the smartphone jointly built by OSOM and Solana shows an interesting performance. With performances close to what can be found with both American and Korean manufacturers. From a technical point of view, the device is therefore an interesting substitute for high-end smartphones from Apple or Samsung.
However, Yakovenko specifies that the objective is not to sell a maximum of smartphones, but instead promote the Solana network. And so, to attract developers. Due to its philosophy, this smartphone was created to address (first) a niche audience. As Yakovenko again clarifies:
The opportunity is there right now, because we don’t need to get $10 million in sales upfront. We can target a very small niche audience, namely cryptocurrency users on the Web3.
In fact, the construction of the smartphone above all responds to a main problem: optimizing the software for the use of digital assets and for the web3. The first devices should be marketed in the first quarter of 2023. Eventually, Yakovenko may secretly aim to be a counterweight to the biggest smartphone manufacturers.
